Posted
by
CmdrTaco
on Wednesday June 09, 2010 @11:13AM
from the that's-not-what-i-heard dept.

schmidt349 submitted a story about Zuckerberg that might fly in the face of what you've heard of the guy in the past. "Award-winning New York Times journalist David Kirkpatrick's new book The Facebook Effect presents readers with a complex view of Facebook's founder and CEO. Primed by hours of conversation and research deep into the history of the social network, Kirkpatrick reaches the conclusion that money isn't a primary motivation for Zuckerberg, 'a coder more than a CEO, a philosopher more than a businessman, a 26-year-old who has consistently avoided selling out because he sees Facebook as his way to change the world.' Kirkpatrick deftly handles the controversy surrounding Facebook's sometimes cavalier attitude toward user privacy, and the result is a much more balanced and less sensationalist account of Facebook's past, present, and future."

As parent points out, he's out to change HIS world. He might have more credibility if he hadn't stole the code, and wasn't compromising user's data, but, hey, he's got the stage so why not try a little spin on the truth.

To rephrase your last phrase, social networking is all about the network effect. Facebook is useful to me because I've got friends and family on it, not because of (shudder) Mafia Wars. A social network without anybody I wanted to, um, socialize with would be useless to me.

I'm with you. I hate Facebook. I hate talking to my family, I've disowned most of the friends I've ever had, and I certainly don't want to talk to anyone from high school, my childhood, or friends of people I've had minimal contact with. If I want to interact with someone, I do it without posting details about my life on the interwebs. How can you put something on the internet and complain about privacy? Independent is the way to be.

People who say "post something on the internet and then complain about privacy" are missing a key point: Access Controls. Facebook has them. Just like many web sites do. The problem is that Facebook has a habit of either removing or neutering certain controls and making available information that they shouldn't.

This is similar to having a HR web site at work where people can access their own records to update emergency contact, children, addresses, etc. This site probably has lots of info on you (national ID number, etc.). Now imagine the admin of the site made a change that neutered or removed the access control list so that everyone in the company could see each other's information. Well, you posted it on the intranet so it's your fault? Not really - it is the fault of that admin. In Facebook's case it is the fault of them changing their model and changing items that had an access control list to public.

the actual application is trivial save for the scaling to millions of users...

Exactly.

Now, You can spout that your independant framework is the best way to go, and even if you manage to master the untrivial task of scaling to millions of users, when you get offered large sums of money for your product, lets see you not sell out.

I may not like what Zuckerberg is doing, but I can't honestly say I wouldn't do the same were I in his position. I think a small bit of the hate directed towards him is generated by the jealousy that his product is on top.

Getting the code to work right is not the tough part. Hell, making the code scalable to millions of users isn't even the tough part. Getting enough people to use your social network so that you reach the critical mass Facebook has is the tough part.

I meant this link: Why I don't use Facebook [slashdot.org]. I was going to link to that actual link, as well about general privacy.

If you don't take privacy into your own hands, don't expect web browsers to. Especially given that they are owned by either businesses who love marketing, Google, Apple, Microsoft. Don't expect governments to protect you.

I filed a TRUST complaint with Facebook. I urge you to do the same. Not that they will do anything though unless they reach a criticial ma

What my plugin seems to do is make every page I visit look like the first page I visited, by supplying the referrer itself. Some websites do break when they use a referrer to force you to come from a certain page, it seems easier to just click the Referrer icon. (Which also lets me block referrer by host, although the information is probably already leaked to be honest.)

Although I may consider the configuration option as no doubt it uses less resources

The interesting individuals from my past are by definition the kind of people who wouldn't be on Facebook. Now, if I wanted to 'link up' with that portion of people from my past who are the fucktards, yes, Facebook would be excellent. However, I chose to move forward in life, not spin my wheels in muck.

...who has consistently avoided selling out because he sees Facebook as his way to change the world

Yeah, if you overlook Facebook Ads, the massive support framework for extracting personal data and giving it to third parties under the guise of 'gaming', the Beacon program, and extending the API so any website can add things to your profile through IFRAMES if you don't delete your cookies/logout. No, Mr. Zuckerberg has a very clear vision of how he intends to change the world: He recognizes the incredible value of having personal information on the majority of people connected to the internet, and he wants to capitalize on that.

He intends to sell the information to the highest bidder, while keeping the market where these exchanges take place to himself. That's his brave new world.

At its heart, all Facebook is is a way for users to verify that another user is who they claim to be. If a dozen of my friends create websites and want me (but not the general public) to have access, I don't have to create a dozen logins and passwords. I only need to make one which gives me access to all their sites. Facebook just locks you into their web site to use this "feature".

Open Source Software could've done the same thing with public/private keys. In fact I'm still hopeful it will. My dozen friends could make websites anywhere, and by using public/private keys they could verify that it's really me visiting their site. But PGP keys never took off because the interface was clumsy and the immediate benefit (secure email) wasn't a big enough carrot. Facebook took off because it let people share photos and messages, which apparently was a big enough carrot.

I can't for the life of me understand why people would want to have a company run by a person of dubious character as Zuckerberg in control of such a crucial interface like a universal login for the Internet.

Just when everyone is thinking "Zuckerberg, what an ass!" we get a book purporting that Zuckerberg is in fact a genius coder and philosopher. And here I thought his philosophy boiled down to "fucking idiots tell me things about themselves that I can sell." When are we going to stop this sycophantic worship of sociopaths who happen to get rich by screwing over others?

When are we going to stop this sycophantic worship of sociopaths who happen to get rich by screwing over others?

They aren't sociopaths. That would be a medical condition beyond their control; They have a diminished sense of right and wrong. No, what they are is far worse: They deliberately ignore social values and mores for their own profit. And this shouldn't come as a surprise. Amongst the wealthy I have learned they have a common social trait that is decidedly uncommong amongst the working class: The ability to turn charm on and off at a whim. These are people who are nice to you, and mean to the waiter. They are

No, the traits that allowed us to become the dominant life form are cooperation, reciprocity, a sense of fairness, and intelligence. The only thing we have going for us as predators is our stamina.

The traits you describe are sociopathic. Sociopathy does not mean you don't know right from wrong. It means you have a diminished sense of empathy and remorse, and you look at people as objects. Sociopaths know right from wrong, which is why they try to hide what they are. They just don't care.

Also, I see that many of us underestimate cooperation. If pure selfishness would be the true way, then there would be no multicellular species -- like us. The fact that we have an imprinted idea of "justice" and we are disturbed by acts of sociopathy shows how deeply imprinted is social behavior.

The fact that we have an imprinted idea of "justice" and we are disturbed by acts of sociopathy shows how deeply imprinted is social behavior.

And a small minority has always existed that manipulates that sense of justice and cooperation for its own ends. A lot of us labor under the illusion that we're equal, but we aren't, we can't be. Humans organize into hierarchial models, with most working and some directing (and profiting?) off of that work. We are cooperative in that most of us are followers, but for that to work some of us must be leaders. This playing of roles is something any individual human being can do, but few actualize that potentia

"I'm sorry to reduce human behavior to such a depressing and simple model, but you can't deny thousands of years of human evolution, which show that in almost every society wealth is concentrated amongst a small number of people."

And you deny hundred thousands of years of human evolution, when this was not true.

Also, proving my point, we have a trained eye for injustice and we tendentiously overreact any cheating in society while we do not recognize the unsurmountable amount of evidence of everyday cooperation.

Even the most psychopathic ones of us cooperate. Even using money is cooperation. In fact it is completely impossible to live in a human society without huge amount of cooperation.

Your opinion is formed by this strange sampling bias that makes us more aware about cheating.

For most of our time on this planet, we have not had hierarchical societies. They are a recent invention, only appearing in the last five thousand years or so.

We have natural leaders, and natural followers, and there are more natural followers than leaders, of course. You say, there must be leaders for society to work, but you do realize that followers are even more crucial, right? Lacking leaders, followers will just do what their parents did, and most of the time this works. Lacking followers, leaders are

This is much more complex than that. Game theory is too simplistic to give answers.

Some problems with game theory - Nash equilibria are not evolutionally stable
- They are also exponential to calculate
- Evolutionally Stable Strategies may not exist
- They are also exponential to calculate
- Evolutionally Stable Strategies could be solved only for very simplistic scenarios
- Evolutionary game theory (currently) deals with simplistic, pairwise, independent games

It just happens that, in a world where most individuals cooperate, the sociopaths win, while in a world where most people are sociopaths, those that cooperate lose a little bit less that those that don't.

Read up on the dictator game and the public goods game. When cooperators are allowed to punish non-cooperation, sociopaths lose. Punishing free riders is part of being cooperative. Game theory FTW, again!

Amongst the wealthy I have learned they have a common social trait that is decidedly uncommong amongst the working class: The ability to turn charm on and off at a whim.

Uh....this isn't a trait that comes from being rich, it's a trait that comes from meeting lots of different people. It's the exact same difference you will find between city people and country people. The more people you manage to meet, the better you get at it. It has nothing to do with being rich, poor, or anything else, except as those correlate with your ability to meet and socialize with more people.

If you want to see this point enshrined in a musical, watch State Fair, where they show the poor co

Really? I'd say perhaps in the preceding five thousand years, but before that we had no walled cities, no mass graves, no weapons meant only for killing humans, no organized warfare, and very little heirarchy. Our current violent, hierarchical culture is an aberration brought about by our invention of agriculture and animal husbandry, our settling down, and subsequent inability to move on when drought and famine hit.

There's plenty of instances of hierarchical structure and intra-species violence in nature, it's not just limited to modern humans. I don't think it's at all unreasonable to expect that even before agriculture humans competed for resources.

The biggest change that we started seeing 5000 years ago was that technology started to increase the scale of those conflicts.

but if their advertising practices are any indication, they are in it for the money. I'm pretty happy with many of the security changes they made a couple of weeks ago after the furor over privacy reached the boiling point, but to claim they have benevolent intentions is ignorance at best.

He never said he had benevolent intentions, he said he wanted to change the world. He dreams of being atop a world changing company, just as Bill Gates, J P Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, and the railroad barons of old all have done. He wants to be the great. He wants to be respected. He sees 'changing the world' as a means to that end, but no moreso than being rich.

True...I guess this is indicitive of the difference between myself and him, then. I hear change the world, and I think of positive things that benefit all mankind. He hears change the world, and he thinks of leaving the world a different place than it was before he showed up, good or bad.::shrug::

I can't get into his method of profit--selling our private info to others.

I'm careful about my private information. I'm sure others aren't so well versed on what to disclose to Facebook. I like the site, seriously, as it has let met get in touch with so many friends and family

So is the book based solely on interviews? Because interviewing the subject himself with no other sources will nearly always give you a favorable picture of the subject. We all craft our own favorable narratives, consciously or not, and that's even more so what we share with the world.

The Time article doesn't really delve into the other research that Mr. Kirkpatrick might have done, so it's very difficult to judge the quality of the book.

"Kirkpatrick reaches the conclusion that money isn't a primary motivation for Zuckerberg"

If that's really true (which i'm certainly willing entertain doubts about) does he want to reduce privacy because he really believes that's what best for everyone? Or if he's not in it for money is he in it for power? Does he just like knowing everything about everyone, and making a profit off of that knowledge is a side game to him? I'm really not sure which of those would be worse. The first case is a lot less despicable, but it's also a lot more threatening if you think that a certain amount of privacy is a good thing.

Zuckerberg is clearly doing what he does in order to change the world. I can't imagine how that would even be a question.

However, his image of the future seems a bit dystopian in my mind. Bring the consumers together, lead the dumb ones to the slaughter, and then force-herd the stubborn ones down the same path. Everything is marketing, everything is sales. Social interaction cannot exist, if not for the sake of making a profit. "There is no privacy" - unless you're one of the powerful elite.

By all appearances, he's trying to increase the class spread, and turn the entire world into marketing. O brave new world, that has such people in't!

While many great things have been accomplished by the relatively young (there's a firm line between "young" and "adult" at 35 in case you're not aware...similar to Chef's "17" philosophy, in fact), they were entirely by accident.

It was my understanding that Zuckerberg was a thief at his very core. Always an opportunist looking to earn off of things he doesn't have any right to possess. This included the photos that started Harvard's Facebook, much of the original code and concept, and continues to this day with examples like the email accounts used to connect to Facebook and their password information. I think this understanding of him is probably accurate.

That being said, wouldn't being a thief preclude the label of 'philosopher'? Isn't the harm caused by theft and the social implications of a world where theft is permissible one of the earliest, simplest hurdles that a 'thinker' must cross to become noteworthy? I'm not up on the stuff, but I'm not aware of any ethos that includes 'rutheless slimeball' as a virtuous-knower of wise things.

That being said, wouldn't being a thief preclude the label of 'philosopher'?

I think Zuckerberg is a scumbag, as well. But I'm going to attempt to play Devil's Advocate. People associate the character Robin Hood, who is a common thief, as a great hero. Robin Hood stole from the rich to give to the poor. More generally, the effect Robin Hood has is that the poor gain more than they lose from his actions. Thus, we can conclude that the assertion that thievery and philosophy are mutually exclusive is false.

Now we examine Zuckerberg to see if his thieving brings a net benefit to

It is an interesting thought, however I don't think you can hold Robin Hood up as an example of a thief. He certainly had more in common with a rebel or freedom fighter than the more normal uses of the word.

I suppose the parallel you're trying to draw is that MZ's crimes could be being committed in the name of the greater good. But I'm not seeing it.

The proper parallel would be Robin Hood robbing from the rich, violating the rich, and letting the poor live in his palace for free - so long as they tell him

I think the parallel is that because of Zuckerberg's actions, poor people are able to reconnect with slightly less poor people who they used to go to high school with and derive some pleasure from that relationship that makes it worth it. Or, alternatively, that somebody ends up meeting a person who later becomes their husband or wife because of Zuckerberg's social network. I'm willing to allow that giving up a few bits of personal privacy would be a small price to pay for finding a loving partner.

that money isn't a primary motivation for Zuckerberg, 'a coder more than a CEO, a philosopher more than a businessman, a 26-year-old who has consistently avoided selling out because he sees Facebook as his way to change the world.'

What was the author smoking when he wrote this?

Not out for the money? "avoided selling out"? What about the phrase "monetizing information" that so often comes up in Facebook's conversations?

What the interview with the 19 year old Zuckerberg who called his users "stupid" for making their information available to him? Yes, he was 19, but I have seen articles on the internet claiming he has said similar things like that in what he thought were confidential conversations.

What about Facebook making defaults public, when it is obvious private would be preferred and doing so without notice?

Is that lack of respect for other people consistent with a "philosopher" who wants to change the world for the better?

Facebook received its first investment of US$500,000 in June 2004 from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. This was followed a year later by $12.7 million in venture capital from Accel Partners, and then $27.5 million more from Greylock Partners...On October 24, 2007, Microsoft announced that it had purchased a 1.6% share of Facebook for $240 million...In November 2007, Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing invested $60 million in Facebook...In August 2008, BusinessWeek reported that private sales by employee

for the first time in history, there exists a man who's interested in changing the world for the democratic better.

Fail. And I use that term sparingly. I'm not going to bother with examples, as this is just batshit insane.

get to know the damn kid

Like YOU know the 'damn kid'? Perhaps you've seen something the rest of us have not with your personal friendship with Zuckerberg. If so you should share. If not, well, look at the preponderance of evidence and draw your own conclusions. Meanwhile leave us free to do likewise.

maybe you'll see that SOME OF US DON'T WANT TO MAKE MONEY! but rather need to make enough to try to help others

Give me an example. please. name me one person who wanted to make the world a better place, and gave less of a fuck about money.

Buddha. Gandhi. Mother Theresa.

That's three. Google yourself some more. All of these people were successful, too. Moreso than Zuckerberg.

stop thinking with your wallet for a second, and start thinking like a human being.

Capitalist pigs and all that aside, I'm thinking with my brain. People get painted by their behaviors. MZ doesn't even admit to his crimes, let alone begin to atone for them, and you want to anoint him a saint. He has yet to do one decent thing for humanity, as far as I have seen.

You're attributing to a single slimeball the entirety of the internet's value while si